"It's" already failed. If the Wizards play .500 ball the rest of the way, they'd finish with 30 wins. If they win 60% of their remaining games (31-21) they'd finish 35-47. They'd need to go 37-15 (.711) to reach .500 this season.

I thought they could win 37 games this season. They'd have to go 33-19 (.634) to reach that "lofty" goal.

Just so I get what you are suggesting. Finishing 31-21 and winning 60% of their remaining games once healthy would be not working ?

I had low expectations for the Wizards, because all their moves and non-moves said "don't expect much," and they made no other moves, and everyone was looking pretty injured, and my expectation just kept going lower and lower. I think I ended up predicting 30 wins or thereabouts, but it was plummeting number that was frozen in time, capable of going lower with a few more days.

For all those low expectations, the team EG put together is worse than I expected, and they would have to have a likely unprecedented turnaround to reach some of our preseason predictions. If they do that, I'll say "Wow, this teams actually pretty average when everyone's healthy and they're all on top of their games. If they play at a 60% clip, someone's probably about to be suspended for steroids.

In the 2011 draft, the Wizards selected Jan Vesely, Chris Singleton and Shelvin Mack. The most productive player per minute from those three: Mack. Who they've cut twice.

Both Vesely and Singleton have more total production of course because they played more minutes. Singleton has about 40% more total "credits" in double the playing time. Vesely has about 25% more credits in about 55% more minutes.

Have started running an unadjusted PPA (meaning not adjusting for pace or defense) on former Wizards/Bullets. It's obviously not as precise as the full PPA, but that takes time and I'm only looking for approximate values anyway.

Saddest numbers I ran were for John "Hot Plate" Williams and Pervis Ellison. Both had seasons in Washington where they produced like top 15-20 players in the league. Both had major injuries and never fully recovered.

Taking requests here or on Twitter, for anyone who's interested.

"A lot of what we call talent is the desire to practice."-- Malcolm Gladwell

MikeG over at the APBRmetrics board has a handy way of estimating how many starters a player faces during his minutes on the floor. A low-minute starter would face more starters than a reserve playing the same number of minutes.

The current high is Willie Green who has started every game for the Clippers, but averages just 18.6 mpg. His "starter percentage" (Sta%) is 87%.

On the low end for players with at least 200 minutes is Joel Anthony -- averaging 8.8 minutes, all off the bench -- at 39%.

Drummond is atop the list. Beal ranks 16th -- right at average for this class of rookies (minimum 200 total minutes). Needs to continue his recent improvement.

I'm a big believer in per-minute numbers, but only up to a point. Guys that are playing 15 minutes per game or fewer really get their numbers skewed because they are so often playing against backups and/or playing only in garbage time. I would pretty much disregard any of these rookies playing 16 minutes or less.

With that in mind, Beal looks considerably better, ranking 8th behind only Drummond, Davis, Kidd-Gilchrist, Lillard, Sullinger, Valanciunas, and Barnes. Beal has been coming on strong lately. If he keeps it up, I'd like to see a new study utilizing only January numbers. My guess is Beal would rank in the top 4 or 5.

From my own, completely unscientific observations, ranking recent play more heavily than play in November and early December, I'd say Beal is somewhere between the 4th and 6th best rookie, behind Lilliard, Drummond and Davis, and somewhere among Kidd Gilchrist, Sullinger and Valanciunas. Given the respective ages and experience of all players mentioned, the only player who I might potentially regret not drafting at #3 is Drummond.

Drummond is atop the list. Beal ranks 16th -- right at average for this class of rookies (minimum 200 total minutes). Needs to continue his recent improvement.

I'm a big believer in per-minute numbers, but only up to a point. Guys that are playing 15 minutes per game or fewer really get their numbers skewed because they are so often playing against backups and/or playing only in garbage time. I would pretty much disregard any of these rookies playing 16 minutes or less.

Already accounted for in PPA. The numbers include an adjustment based on that Starter% term.

"A lot of what we call talent is the desire to practice."-- Malcolm Gladwell

Drummond is atop the list. Beal ranks 16th -- right at average for this class of rookies (minimum 200 total minutes). Needs to continue his recent improvement.

I'm a big believer in per-minute numbers, but only up to a point. Guys that are playing 15 minutes per game or fewer really get their numbers skewed because they are so often playing against backups and/or playing only in garbage time. I would pretty much disregard any of these rookies playing 16 minutes or less.

Already accounted for in PPA. The numbers include an adjustment based on that Starter% term.

I normally use 500 minutes as the cutoff for reliability in per minute stats. (Research from some of the stat guys suggest per minute stats stabilize around 150 total minutes, but I've always preferred 500.) I used 200 for the rookies because the season isn't even to the halfway point yet.

But, out of curiosity, I went to the 500-minute cutoff point. So far, 23 rookies have played at least 500 minutes. Beal ranks 11th in PPA among that group. Rookies with 500+ minutes have an average PPA of 80 so far -- a little better than Beal's 75.

"A lot of what we call talent is the desire to practice."-- Malcolm Gladwell

AFM wrote:I know it's a small sample size but what's Beal's PPA in the last month?

Here are Beal's PPA scores by month:

Oct/Nov -- 52December -- 65January -- 124

The January number IS encouraging, but when I drill down, I do see things that make me...well..."nervous" isn't quite the right word, but it'll do. Specifically, Beal's improvement is almost exclusively in the category of 3pt shooting. His 2pt% is .397 in January -- down from .447 in December, which was up from .333 in Oct/Nov.

In January, his per minute numbers are down if fta, reb, and ast. He's a little better in steals, turnovers and fouls. All his numbers are at least decent for a SG, so no real worries. More of an observation, really.

"A lot of what we call talent is the desire to practice."-- Malcolm Gladwell

A few weeks ago Beal tried to dunk on Josh Smith and got punked so badly he ended up missing a couple of games. Against OKC he tried to dunk on Ibaka. He definitely has a lot to learn as far as finishing in/near the paint.

It also seems like too often he will go up for a jumper when a defender is in a good position to block/contest it.

tontoz wrote:A few weeks ago Beal tried to dunk on Josh Smith and got punked so badly he ended up missing a couple of games. Against OKC he tried to dunk on Ibaka. He definitely has a lot to learn as far as finishing in/near the paint.

It also seems like too often he will go up for a jumper when a defender is in a good position to block/contest it.

It's those types of shortcomings that I don't worry much about right now. He seems smart and capable of working, adapting, and learning, and those seem the type of things a 19-year-old rookie would still be learning about the NBA.

tontoz wrote:A few weeks ago Beal tried to dunk on Josh Smith and got punked so badly he ended up missing a couple of games. Against OKC he tried to dunk on Ibaka. He definitely has a lot to learn as far as finishing in/near the paint.

It also seems like too often he will go up for a jumper when a defender is in a good position to block/contest it.

It's those types of shortcomings that I don't worry much about right now. He seems smart and capable of working, adapting, and learning, and those seem the type of things a 19-year-old rookie would still be learning about the NBA.

Agreed. Harden's 2 point percentage was pretty bad as a rookie. He only shot 47% at the rim compared to Beals current 59%.

Now that Beal seems to be past his rookie jitters i am hoping that he just makes his open jumpers at a good rate. These other things will probably take more time.

tontoz wrote:A few weeks ago Beal tried to dunk on Josh Smith and got punked so badly he ended up missing a couple of games. Against OKC he tried to dunk on Ibaka. He definitely has a lot to learn as far as finishing in/near the paint.

It also seems like too often he will go up for a jumper when a defender is in a good position to block/contest it.

It's those types of shortcomings that I don't worry much about right now. He seems smart and capable of working, adapting, and learning, and those seem the type of things a 19-year-old rookie would still be learning about the NBA.

Agreed. Harden's 2 point percentage was pretty bad as a rookie. He only shot 47% at the rim compared to Beals current 59%.

Now that Beal seems to be past his rookie jitters i am hoping that he just makes his open jumpers at a good rate. These other things will probably take more time.

The big reason for this was because Harden was blocked at the rim nearly 20% of the time... I had concernes about Beals shot blocked % until I saw that number.